The videogame ‘Sairento VR: Untethered’ has just been released for the Oculus Quest and is available on the Oculus Store. It is a top-down shooter where you can do triple jumps, wall runs, shoot while doing backflips off walls, swing swords, fire guns…it’s Ninja vs Samurai action at its best.
Sairento VR: Untethered is made by Mixed Realms Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based videogame company that is also working on Sairento VR for both Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. We are extremely excited to see this game coming out for the Oculus Quest, unlike most studios who are still waiting to port their titles over from PC to the new device. While no official date has been announced yet other than “soon”, we can assume it will probably be available as soon as other major titles such as Robo Recall and Dead and Buried 2.
The other cool aspect of Sairento VR: Untethered is that it’s online multiplayer so you can play with up to 4 people simultaneously. Robo Recall unfortunately does not have online multiplayer for the Oculus Quest, let’s see how long it takes before we get a port of Dead and Buried 2 to the device!
In Sairento VR: Untethered you can choose from 3 different characters themed from “mystic” (blue), “warrior” (red) and “ghost” (green). The character you play with determines your starting weapons and powers. Each level has a central shrine where you can upgrade your skills but you can only select 1 power at a time. Your main weapon is the sword which is extremely powerful when going one on one against other players or NPC’s in the game, especially when they’re unaware of your presence. The other weapons in the game include pistols, throwing knives and shurikens. You can also knock enemies off buildings or over ledges for extra points.
You will be graded at the end of each level on your performance (kills, accuracy, time spent etc) and you earn star coins depending on your score. These star coins can be used to buy new skills and power-ups such as health regeneration and invisibility. You can also buy color palettes and different armor for your ninja character. This is a nice touch because unlike most games these days everything is automatically unlocked by default which takes all motivation away from wanting to play more just so you can unlock better raiments/color schemes for your character(s).
Sairento VR: Untethered also has a level editor which is easy to use and lets you share your levels with other players around the world. You can either play or rate other players’ creations in this mode. We are hoping that Mixed Realms will include these maps in the main game, later on, things like ‘Escape from Tarkov’ have benefited greatly by allowing user-created content for their game. From what we’ve seen so far though, it seems likely that they’ll focus resources on creating new maps rather than create them for the community – hopefully, this will change in time!
One of the main reasons why Sairento VR: Untethered is extremely immersive is because not only do you feel like you’re actually playing a videogame, you’re not aware that the controllers are in fact your hands. You’ll be reaching for walls to jump on or grabbing swords from your back while actually having no arms at all! We feel this really takes advantage of what being ‘in-game’ is all about.
The other thing which makes Sairento VR: Untethered so immersive is the soundtrack and voice acting. The music really adds to the already very tense atmosphere, especially when there are multiple enemies around and you can hear them getting closer with their footsteps. If you’re playing this game during the daytime then setting the right lighting conditions IRL will make it even more realistic because obviously there would be less noise if it was dark outside (muffled footsteps etc), but also less light.
Generally speaking, this game should appeal to everyone who enjoys first-person shooters or hack & slash games – especially if you have any interest in ninjas or other oriental themes. Combine that with the fact that it’s addicting as hell and has great replayability thanks to the level editor, this game is definitely worth buying on Day 1! It isn’t quite as polished as Robo Recall (yet) but we’re almost certain they’ll be releasing frequent updates for it until it gets to that point and beyond.
Verdict
+ Very immersive (especially if you play with dark lighting conditions)
+ Addictive & intense gameplay, something you can really get your teeth into!
+/- There’s no big plot to the game which left us wanting more story development.
– We would have liked to see different types of enemies with different abilities in later levels. For example, having an enemy that can heal other enemies or run faster than you. Although they may be planning on adding this in post-release updates, who knows? TLDR: A must buy for any VR owners who are looking for a challenging and polished videogame to sink their teeth into! Great replayability thanks to it being user-created content ready makes